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THE CRIME 

AGAINST THE PRESIDENCY. 

A. SERMON, 

By REV. WM. M. BLACKBURN. 



THE CEIME 

AGAINST THE PRESIDENCY. 



A. SERMOISr, 



DELIVERED SUNDAY, APRIL 16, 1865, 



FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

TRENTON, N. J., 



BY THE PASTOR, 

Rev. WILLIAM M. BLACKBURK 



TEENTON, N. J.: 
MURPHY k BECHTEL, PRINTERS, OPPOSITE THE CITY HALL. 

1865. 






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PREFACE. 

The pressure of the awful grief, under which this sermon was 
prepared, will be readily understood by those who were almost 
bewildered with sorrow during the very hours when it was written 
by a rapid hand. The decision for its publication has turned, not 
upon the author's judgment, but upon the urgent demand of many 
friends, into whose hands the manuscripts are now committed. 

W, M. B. 

Trenton, N. J., April 18, 1865. 



SERMON. 



" A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land.'' — 
Jeremiah v. 30. 

"The land of trouble and anguish, from whence came the young 
and old lion, the viper and the fiery flying serpent." — Isaiah xxx. 6. 

" God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of 
Jesus Christ, my Lord," and you know that in the pulpit 
my chief aim has been to point you to that cross, the 
standard of our holy Christianity. .But now the Chris- 
tian patriot's eye sees beside it the standard of his coun- 
try, and the flag is draped, for the land is in tears, and 
would you have me to be silent ? You know that I have 
avoided the mention of the character, the mission, the 
measures of the Chief Magistrate, and you knew not 
what I thought of him. But now a desperate murderer 
has taken away the veil of reserve. Can I touch upon 
the crime against this government, w^ithout pointing to 
him whom God and the people had a second time placed 
at the head ? 

The man, Abraham Lincoln, has been murdered by 
one who came up from "the land of trouble and anguish, 
whence come the viper and the fiery flying serpent" — 
the land of the dagger and the duel, where the tragedian 
was an insignificant player compared with the numerous 
actors in real tragedies of blood. After weeks of lying 
in wait, and after plotting a widely extended murder, he 
has slain the man for whom a nation mourns. What if 
he were the most insignificant man that walked those 
streets, the report of it is worthy of solemnity, tears, 
and the trumpet-tone of rebuke upon all who have ever 



6 

felt any malice against liim, or any sympathy for the 
class of desperadoes that have incited this deed, and led 
the invasion of death into his Cabinet. His blood would 
cry unto God and unto this nation for justice upon this 
crime against humanity. 

Do not suppose that war has produced this disregard 
for human life. Nay, it produced the war. It existed 
long before the war. It showed itself in the delight 
taken in the lashing of theTslave, and the lynching of 
their "Northern brethren" on suspicion, or the striking 
down of Senators in the National Halls. This reckless- 
ness of life has revealed itself also in the free States, for 
it was encouraged by the decay of justice, and by that 
sentimental sort of mercy which would pull down the 
lawful gallows and make the murderer's dungeon soft 
and inviting, or, on the plea of temporary insanity, set 
him at large in society. AVliat court does not have, 
almost every term, some one on trial for the assassina- 
tion of a man? How accustomed have we grown to 
this greatest crinae of one human being against another ! 
A few years ago, if the most prominent lawyer of Spring- 
field, 111., had been shot dead, it would have been the 
slaying of only a man ! 

But now it is more. It is not the murder of Abraham 
Lincoln, it is the deliberate murder of the President of 
the United States. You and I had no other President. 
If you voted for another — if you preferred another — you 
acknowledged him as your Chief Magistrate for the next 
four years. You read in your Bible, "Let every soul be 
subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but 
of God : the powers that be are ordained of God. Who- 
soever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the 
ordinance of God." You might not all endorse every 
policy that he put forth, but you were ready to give your 
support to him as the President. And now our President 
lies dead, and we realize what an enormous crime it is to 
slay the ruler of a people. Oh ! if our rightful and 



righteous rulers are not safe, then who is ? It is not a 
crime against a man, but against the office of Chief 
Magistrate. 

Nor is this alL It was not only a crime 'against the 
Presidency, but it was intended as a death-blow to the 
policies which were adopted by the Administration, and 
sanctioned by the overwhelming majority of loyal men, 
as the best measures for restoring a divided country and 
securing a permanent peace in righteousness and hu- 
manity. It was an effort to subvert the sound demo- 
cratic principle of this Republic, that the majority of 
rio-htful voters shall rule. The aim was to murder the 
President and his policy. 

1 do not stand here to express any admiration or dis- 
approbation of the slain President. History will call up 
all that deserves a record for that future which will not 
fail to do justice to his memory. It is not my place to 
attempt the shaping of your politics ; but I have one 
simple method of settling my own. And this determines 
my relation to the man we called President. It is to 
keep myself clear of all party spirit and strifes. I cannot 
afford to distract myself with partizan questions, nor can 
I enter very deeply into the writings upon Constitutional 
law. 

My plan is this : — First, to see what principles God 
lays down in his inspired word to guide the moral sub- 
ject and the patriotic Christian in their duties to the 
Government which protects them. Secondly, to look 
where the Christian Church is going, and, at least, to 
move on in her wake. For the Church is expected to 
follow Christ, who cheerfully paid his tax to the Govern- 
ment and raised up an Apostle who declared disobedience 
to rulers a ruinous crime. And if any large class of men 
are about right in their views of political sins, dangers, 
and measures, they are the Christians of these loyal States. 
Let me be with them, for were I among immoral, in- 
temperate, disobedient, violent and hypocritical men, 



8 

who scoff at the gospel, "despise dominion and speak 
evil of dignities," it is generally, though not quite always, 
seen that I am among those who sympathize with treason, 
uphold rebellion, sneer at loyalty, threaten and curse 
their rulers, and who, to-day, as far as they dare, are re- 
joicing in the deed that has robbed the nation of her 
Chief Magistrate. It is not congenial company. It is 
not safe company, for "he that is glad at calamities shall 
not be unpunished." 

]!:^ow I took these rules for my guidance early in 1861, 
when my mind was as nearly a blank in regard to na- 
tional measures as a cautious conservatism could make 
it. I confess that I had no predilections in favor of Mr. 
Lincoln. And what did I see ? The President elect 
leaving Springfield, and honestly, feelingly, asking the 
Christian people of the land to pray for him — and, as he 
entered upon his office, taking first the Book of God, 
and next to it the Constitution of the United States. 
That Bible shaped his convictions of right, and that Con- 
stitution directed him in his public measures. To him, 
God was the great Father — how often he thus called 
Him in his proclamations — whose purposes would be 
fulfilled, and the President was but an agent in His 
hands. What the Divine Word made to be sin and in- 
humanity, he believed must be put away, as God had 
declared, and he at length saw that this nation must 
"loose the bands of wickedness, and let the oppressed 
go free." He seemed raised up by God, not only to de- 
stroy the vipeVy rebellion, but also slavery, that fery ser- 
pent that was poisoning the nation's life. That was his 
mission. It seemed plainer to me every day that he 
ruled. 

And where were the Christian Churches of the land? 
In opposition? In league with rebellion and human 
oppression? Never was there such a unanimous move- 
ment of the moral and Christian forces of this nation in 
one direction, as during the last Administration. They 



9 

said to the President — We meddle not with politics ; we 
did not all vote for you ; we tamper not with questions 
of the State ; but we bring up the Church that it may 
co-operate with the army in putting down treason and 
casting the great cause of these curses out of the land. 
We pray for you ; we uphold you ; we preach the cross, 
which gives a moral power to the tiag of the nation ; in 
the name of our God we lift up our banners; go on, and 
the Lord be with you, and prosper those measures which 
every honest conscience will approve as righteous in the 
judgment day. For, though this be not the only great 
national sin, yet we have "the manifest tokens thai the 
time has at length come, in the Providence of God, ivhen it is 
His loill that every vestige of human slavery among us should 
be effaced, and that every Christian man should address him- 
self with industry and earnestness to his approjmate jmrt in 
the performwice of this great daty:'—\_3Iinutes General As- 
sembly Presbyterian Church, 1864, p. 298.] 

CoLikl I refuse to move on with the great bodies of the 
Christian Church, when they thus recognized the mission 
Oil which God had sent the President? And when, one 
week ago this coming midnight, the bells were ringing, 
and our own silent spire listening to the stars, was 
there not some proof that neither the President, nor the 
Christian Church, nor the intrepid army, nor the great 
generals uf this age, had been mistaken in their measures 
for accomplishing the two vast objects before them — the 
crushing of the rebellion and the emancipation of the 
slaves ? It was for these two purposes, it seems to me, 
that this great and good man was raised up. The world 
will know and history will tell that Abraham Lincoln 
was President when these two magnificent achievements 
were gained; and if I am so happy as to have my name 
recalled in some little circle that meets in the next cen- 
tury to talk over the deeds of their fathers, I want it to 
be understood that no hand nor voice of mine was ever 
lifted against the man who was shot the very week that 



10 

victory was making music for a people rejoicing in the 
beginning of their freedom from treason and from inhu- 
man oppression. 

Dead, dead, dead, is he — our President, whose heart 
■was full of tenderness even to the guiltiest — whose pen 
was almost in the ink to write some proclamation of 
amnesty — whose invitation was soon coming to the glad 
people, who have given their wealth, their sons and their 
prayers to the nation, to assemble and give thanks to 
Almighty God, "whose right hand and holy arm hath 
gotten us the victory" — the President, whose last smiles 
were in thinking that the sad conscripts might be re- 
leased, and the weary soldier soon discharged, and the 
wounded patriot soon on his own couch at home, telling 
his neighbors, over and over again, how he had bravely 
fought, and always believed that the righteous cause 
would conquer — whose honesty and fearlessness ren- 
dered him so unsuspecting that he could have taken in 
his forgiving bosom that viper from the land of trouble | 
and anguish, which inflicted upon him the last revenge of f" 
the treason and slavery which had nursed it and imparted * 
to it the revenge of their expiring life. Yes, our Presi- k 
dent is dead ! 

And who slew him ? Not that actor, who, by playing 
tragedies, had hardened himself to enact one of his own; 
not the wretch alone who flred the shot, sprang upon 
the stage, flourished his dagger, and shouted "ifc semper 
tyranniSy" the motto of Virginia perverted into the text 
of treason. lie is not the real author ; he is only the 
agent of those who stinmlated him to the deed by their 
cries of "down with the tyrant." It is a class hard to 
define. No party name will apply to them. No polities 
will describe their creed. Men, who honeatly disapproved 
of the President's measures, could stand up manly and 
dignified and oppose his course with argument and with- 
out detraction. They were men of unquestionable loy- 
alty and devotion to the government, and if they disliked 



11 

the present administration they acted like patriots, and 
waited with patience for a chfinge. If these men had 
risen, like Cromwell, solemnly before God and the 
world, carrying with them the Christian prayer and 
piety that he did, and proved that the ruler was a tyrant, 
and impeached him before the high courts, and then, 
slowly, and sternly applied death to him as the last 
remedy for the national evils, we should pause before 
the event and ask whether the act was reall}^ a^ crime. 
No such course was dreamed of by the honest and honora- 
ble opponents of the President. I^ay, they spurned the 
idea that there was tyranny in that Chief Magistrate 
whose every letter, every message, every speech, every 
grasp of the hand, proved that he loved the whole people, 
and did not claim to be unerring in his judgment. And 
they weep to-day over the horrible thing that is done in 
the land. 

But these men who incited the assassins — they could 
hold no just rank with reasonable opponents — they had 
no creed, except such as they could glean from the Rich- 
mond papers and their echoes at home, and therefore 
only curses fell from their lips. No matter what plans 
the administration adopted, in obedience to the people's 
voice, they were always on the other side. Now one 
thing, now another, but always full of tenderness for 
treason and malice against the President. Perhaps some 
of them repented when they found that his measures 
were becoming eiFective and national. Some of them 
may have such a horror of murder that they deeply 
lament this endangering crime against the Presidency. 
They perceive that they never felt any tyranny, and they 
have a terror of anarchy. I do not refer then to them. 

But there are two tests by which you may know whom 
I impeach before the public, as the stimulators of this 
murder. One is, who wished it to be committed ? None 
will now dare acknowledge such a desire ; and yet they 
may be known by the other test — who are rejoicing over 



12 

this crime? The perpetrators knew what certain sjm- 
pathizers with treason wished to be done. Thej knew 
there were treasonable and desperate people mingling 
with the loyal citizens of our country, for only under 
the loyal President could they be safe and free, and 
putting forward their pretensions to loyalty on every 
hand. And these people have wislied the Richmond 
Government to succeed ; they have gone about, in their 
utter ignorance of Scripture, with "Bible arguments" 
for slavery and rebellion ; they have insulted the Most 
High by saying that " God has nothing to do in this 
war;" they have reviled the Christian Church by assert- 
ing that she was the author of the national troubles; 
they have shouted "violation of the Constitution" with 
lusty lung, while violating it themselves, and trampling 
down human and divine laws ; they have revelled in 
their shame, and gained impudence enough to curse the 
President and the government on the streets ; they have 
despised every national song and put contempt on the 
flag of the brave ; they have shouted their cheers for the 
arch-rebel, and sung " up with the traitors and down with 
the stars ;" they have scoffed at patriotism and sneered 
at the soldier returning, a mere skeleton, from the 
prisons of a barbarous foe ; they have only wanted an 
Absalom to raise the standard of a new revolt, in which 
not a moral or a godly man could be found, and they 
were ready to flock to it ; they have had their " circles " 
and conspiracies in the Northwest, and some of their 
number have shot down ofiicers of the government; 
and when the dreadful tidings of our occasional defeat 
put you all into lamentation, they have crept out of their 
holes and rejoiced, but an awfully sad countenance hung 
on th'em when the land was full of shouts for victory. 
These were the men, yes, — and shall I say it? — the 
women, who wished to see done just what the tragedian 
(bolder than they) has accomplished. Oh ! it is their 
victory, and some, upon these streets, yesterday, were 



13 

wining to claim it. These are the people whom the 
deadly viper represented and whose venom he embodied. 
Let us know with whom we are living, and let the power 
of a righteous indignation be publicly felt. 

Let there be no violence against such persons, but let 
them know, quietly, that there is a sense of justice in 
the popular heart, and a law in the Commonwealth that 
will not brook such insults to humanity, to civilization, 
to Christianity and to God, and you will find that Daniel 
Webster's remark will be proved : "There is no greater 
human power on earth than the tremendous indignation 
of the people." Let justice be restored to her place, for 
without her principles all mercy is but meaningless pre- 
tension. Let them understand Paul's words, "they that 
resist (their lawful rulers) shall receive to themselves 
damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, 
but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the 
power (the ruler) ? ... For he is the minister of God 
to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be 
afraid ; for he beareth not the sword in vain ; for he is 
the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon 
him that doeth evil." Educate men up to this point of 
orthodox faith and conduct, and no more Presidents will 
be murdered. 

There are deeds which reveal themselves as only the 
concentration of many influences— the climax of a long 
series of general evils. This is one of them. The mur- 
der of a President is a horrible thing in the land, but it 
is more horrible still to be compelled to believe that this deed is 
only the evidence of a somewhat extended malice and a deep 
rooted ^ dejjravity of the serpent. That crime is but the 
cropping out of a more general wickedness that under- 
lies it. The three chief sources of that crime are slavery, 
rebellion, and a sympathy among us for both of them. 
And there are times when a murder must be charged 
home upon a certain class of men, who under the cry of 



14 

tyranny soiigM anarchy, and not merely upon tlie agents 
of their desires, 

"What did Peter say to the Jewish people ? That Judas 
was the author of the great crime on Calvary? That the 
men who actually pierced the Lord, were the assassins ? 
iN'ay ; he remembered how, for long months, the cry had 
been raised against Jesus ; how curses had been pro- 
nounced and threats uttered ; how the general voice had 
rang in the streets, "Kot this man, but Barabbas " — quite 
in the same spirit that some have said, "iSTot the loyal 
President, but the arch-traitor." Peter boldly declared 
in the face of those who had nursed up the greatest crime 
that ever had been committed against that nation and 
against God, "Ye are the betrayers and murderers." 
That preaching brought repentance, and we now need 
more of the same sbrt History has given her verdict 
against that people, though they "did it ignorantly in 
unbelief." "Had they known it, they would not have 
crucified the Lord of Glory." 

"What shall be the verdict of just history in this case? 
That the perpetrators and sympathizers did it ignorantly? 
Far be it from me to say that all who have stimulated 
others to this crime, really intended that it should be 
committed. Many of them did not mean what they said, 
when they shouted, "Down with the tyrant," and others 
had no intellectual or moral perception of crime. Or will 
history involve us all in this deed, because certain men 
have made themselves vile with treasonable sympathies, 
and we restrained them not. You cannot — I cannot — 
feel that wc had any individual part in this crime. But 
a part of this nation is involved in it, as much as a part 
of the Netherland Republic was identified with the man 
who fatally stabbed the Prince of Orange — that part 
which to-day love the treason, though they hate the 
traitor ; love the murder, though they, perhaps, would 
not dare to hide the murderer. And it seems as if God 
were saying to this nation, "You have not checked the 



15 

malice tliat led to this crime ; you did not spoil the pow- 
der that sent that deadly ball through the brain of your 
President ; you have winked at the public sins that have 
intensified into one great assassination ; your garments 
will be somewhat stained, unless you shake ofi' the viper 
from your own hand, by giving more power to the public 
sentiment of respect for your rulers and for the ordi- 
nances of God." 

0, let us confess before God the sins of those, who 
have provoked Jehovah by their malicious sympathies 
with treason and their utter want of patriotic devotion. 
Let us confess that law has been dishonored for long 
years, and justice has been slain in the streets. Let us 
confess that we bowed and cringed too lowly to that 
political power which was, for thirty years, laying its 
foundations in slavery, and at length endeavored to crown 
the edifice with rebellion. The leaders of that scheme 
demanded that we acknowledge it, foster it, set up on 
high, and receive it as the best form of civilization — that 
all the free States crouch down before it, and in the face 
of our superior social and moral culture, and our intel- 
lectual and Christian elevation, confess our inferiority — 
confess that we were a drivelling class of mammon- 
seekers and craven-hearted hirelings — and that all chiv- 
alry, all aristocracy, all sacred nobility were among them. 
We must go back there to find the original causes of the 
President's death. Yes, we went too for astray from the 
rectitude of the men in whose blood the charters of our 
liberties were written, and more blood was requisite from 
our people, and even from our President, to give us a 
full conviction of the tremendous magnitude of those 
national sins which were destroying the nation. 

Nor have we yet reached the limit of this tragic deed. 
It is a crime against the gentleness and generosity of the 
President. He set aside the long established political 
doctrine that to the "victors belong the spoils." Did 
he show any partiality to the party that elected him, for 



16 

one hour after the war was opened upon us ? Did he 
select his generals from that party alone ? If he, after 
great pressure from all quarters, set aside any officers, it 
was not that he might place men who were originally of 
his political views in their stead. No man more thor- 
oughly ignored politics, rose above party, and recognized 
enlightened patriotism in Avhomsoever he found it. 
Look at his Cabinet; look at the army; look at the 
appointments in all military positions ; and you see this 
carried so far that he ofiended certain men who claimed 
his consideration simply because they had voted for him. 
What if they had? The country had other men quite 
as capable, and he would satisfy all parties, if largeness 
of views, and generosity of soul, could possibly affect 
them. And how can you account for the fact that most 
of the men appointed from other parties, worked with 
him so harmoniously, gradually became convinced that 
his measures were best, and became among his warmest 
friends ? And how account for the fact that hundreds 
of other prominent men were won to his views, and 
voluntarily, and without any hope of position under him, 
sustained him to the last ? Only by taking these ^acts 
as evidences that they perceived the justice and nation- 
ality of his policy, the nobleness of his nature, the purity 
of his motives, the single aim of his eye, and the right- 
eousness of the great cause which ought to know no 
party, and make the love of country second only to the 
love of the Redeemer. And how generous was he in all 
his proposals to conquered foes, to subdued States, and 
to surrendering armies! And I verily believe that the 
kindness of the amnesty he was about to proclaim would 
have astonished the civilized world. No other such 
smile could have gone like a genial spring-time over all 
the South, as that of the cheerful, hopeful, gentle, gen- 
erous, winning man, who stood looking southward as a 
father, to welcome the repentant prodigals returning 
home. Seeing them yet a great way off, he would have 



17 

ran to meet them, that, falling into each other's arms, 
they might weep together, and forgive and be reconciled. 
If this were not enough to melt the heart of that trage- 
dian, who was permitted to walk so freely the streets of 
the capital, then he must have let the malice of his abet- 
tors stultify every sentiment of gratitude, and been 
moved with spite at the signal mercies of the very man 
who held out to him a gracious pardon. 

Moreover, this crime against the Presidency, and 
against the national measures, is also a crime against the 
'patriotism of the loyal people. In order to bring out this 
patriotism, rising infinitely above all partizanship, God 
has introduced three crises of trial, thus separating those 
who truly love their country from those who would 
betray it. 

One crisis was brought in that proclamation, just four 
years ago, calling for seventy-five thousand men. The 
boom from Fort Sumpter prepared the way for the 
answer to the telegram, and we had a united North. 
Just four years ago to-day it was read on street corners 
and from pulpits, and men began to organize on the 
spot," Men then thanked God that the plot to murder 
this same President had failed. Politics ceased to be ; 
patriotism reigned supreme. Everybody vowed before 
God to sustain the Chief Magistrate. That crisis passed, 
and all felt that the rebellion must go down, if it laid 
low every interest of the conspirators. The President 
felt sure that all hearts were loyal, and that, with the 
combined help of the people, God would turn to us the 
victory. 

The second crisis was in the fall of 1862. The rebels 
thought they would succeed, and their hopes found sym- 
pathizers among certain men who were too cowardly to 
join their army, but remained here to hiss their treason. 
There was no need, they thought, of an assassination. 
Loyal men looked to heaven, but a great cloud hung 
dark in the sky. The President saw just where to strike 



18 

the one fatal blow to the rebellion and its cause. From 
his pen came the test to all men, even his best friends. 
I shall never forget how it tried my soul. "We were 
entering 'New York bay, when we got a paper from a 
pilot-boat. For months we had heard men in England 
and on the Continent saying to us, " You will never put 
down that rebellion. History and Providence are against 
you." When we left Liverpool we knew not what was 
the result at Antietam. During twelve long sick days 
at sea, this Continent might have sunk and we not have 
known it. And the paper was full of the proclamation. 
Three months more of rebellion and slavery must be 
destroyed. iN'ot a man said. Amen. But one Virginia 
lady, an exile from that state for loyalty, had the courage 
to say, "It will destroy the rebellion — the cause and the 
curse will go down together." The results are proving 
her a true pophetess. 

I do not pretend to read the secret counsels of my 
sovereign God. But when Providence so manifests His 
purposes that they are written in public events, it is no 
arrogance to read the interpretation. It seems to me 
that in the year 1862, He said to this nation : " This war 
shall go on until my victories are accomplished. It shall 
go on until party politics shall give way to eternal prin- 
ciples of righteousness. Ye shall have defeats and diffi- 
culties until your aim is to seek a Union which shall not 
have in it again the elements of inevitable disunion. Ye 
shall be humiliated until ye put away the accursed thing, 
and break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. 
Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and 
God shall be rear-ward. Then, with every fleet and 
every moving column you shall have victories, and great 
surrenders will be the order of events." And has it not 
been so? No one seenu'd to hear (Jod's voice two years 
ago last autumn so clearly as the President. His pro- 
clamation made that time a crisis. 

That crisis passed — but there were revived sympathies 



19 

with the politics of Southern treason, which vented their 
fiendish spite on the night of the Last Good Friday, and 
despairing traitors murdered the best friend they ever 
had ! Oh, does it mean anything, that our President was 
murdered on the anniversary of the same day on which 
our Lord was crucified? I carefully guard against any 
comparison between the two persons, but in one point 
the two crimes were alike — they were both the deeds of 
a class, who hated a great movement for the good of 
humanity, and entertained a secret malice against its 
author. Almost the entire people, at that crisis, finally 
poured themselves forth upon the side of the Chief 
Magistrate, but the dregs of dead parties remained to 
bring into reality this great crime of their secret souls. 

The third crisis came in the victories of the last twelve 
days. The President was spared long enough to stand 
safe in Richmond and telegraph the victory. "Would not 
all men shout the triumph, shake hands, and pour out 
their gratitude to God ? Would not the lovers of treason 
give up their sympathies, and their malice against the 
President ? Everybody seemed to throw out the banner, 
and wear a joyful countenance, and would not the very 
last remnant of dissatisfaction and depravity repent, and 
flock as doves to render thanks to Almighty God ? ISTo: 
two accomplices in Washington knew it. They knew 
their deed would be hailed with secret delight among 
certain ones, who owe more to that slain President than 
to any man Avho will be buried for years to come. This 
crisis will bring them out to public view. It will sepa- 
rate between the nationally righteous and the wicked. 
The whole Church and all who are in the habit of truly 
worshipping God will lament, saying, " How are the 
mighty fallen !" The immoral, the disloyal, and the un- 
godly and hypocrites, whom our Lord would have called 
a "generation of vipers," will gather in dark corners, 
and hiss their exultation, not only because the President 
is dead, but because the Secretary of State even while 



20 

despatching to Europe the victories of our arms, has been 
stabbed, and while bleeding away his life, must also 
weep it away over a brave son, who seems a dying victim 
to the gasping powers of rebellion and slavery. J'hank 
God, General Grant was not within their reach, and 
thank God, too, that He says to us, "Cease ye from man 
whose breath is in his nostrils." " The Lord is our Judge, 
the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King, He will 
save us." 

This great crime will fall like a holy baptism upon all 
loyal men, but it will sweep like an avenging fire through 
the land to purify it. It will be seen that it was not a 
blow at the man but at the Government. It is the malice 
begun at Sumpter, ending at Washington, and one of 
the providences will he that it will again give us a united 
North. It is the dying scorpion stinging itself as the 
final display of its power. And perhaps this mysterious 
providence may be interpreted. I may venture upon the 
interpretation that first arose in the minds of patriotic 
men. It is, that there may have been danger from the 
admirable moderation and fatherly spirit of the President. 
He might have been too lenient toward the leaders of 
treason who brought war upon us, slaughtered thousands 
of patriots, and by a back stroke have now taken the 
life of the man who pitied them most. And God seems 
to be saying by this event, " Hang your traitors! Take 
your justice from David, and your mercy from Christ ; 
for the mercy of the cross is founded u}»on the justice of 
God in the atonement." Another must take his place, 
and may God give Andrew Johnson sufiieient grace to 
execute justice upon all who have said by their sympa- 
thies and their crimes, "Let us kill the Prosidout that 
the government may be ours." 

My friends, I would not be vindictive. It has been a 
struggle with me, ever since yesterday morning, to get 
from Mount Sinai to Cavalry, and even there the dying 
Jesus, the Lord of all, is revealing to us the Divine 



21 

Majesty of Law. He endures the justice of the Infinite 
Law, that he may purchase for us the mercy of the Gos- 
pel. He sees two malefactors enduring the death pen- 
alty, one on each side of liis own cross, yet he does not 
release them by miracle, or by command. The law 
must have its course, and of their sufferings one of 
them declares, "We indeed justly, for we receive the 
due reward of our deeds." This guilty man seems 
to be brought to repentance by the justice he endures 
and by his own sin, in contrast with the innocence of 
the Holy One, who "hath done nothing amiss," as well 
as by the gracious power of the Spirit of God. He prays 
for Christ's remembrance of him, and Jesus assures him 
of being that very day in Paradise. Would that this 
Spirit of Jesus, this "gentleness of Christ," might be in 
the public mind, if the assassins in this present tragedy 
be arrested. And may their punishment lead them to 
repentance, and to the Lamb of God who taketh away 
the sins of the world. May no degree of calm justice be 
withheld from them, but may they not be denied our 
prayers, nor the saving power of their God. My prayer 
is for their arrest, their punishment, and their salvation 
in death. The law has no forgiveness for them, but if 
Jesus purchased a pardon for them, may they behold 
"the severity and goodness of God," and even at this 
late day, open their hearts to Omnipotent mercy. And 
let each of us be sure that we appreciate the justice 
which He suffered on our behalf, and accept the mercy 
which results from His atonement. Since our nature 
had a guilty part in the crucifixion of Christ, may our 
souls have a saving part in that " blood which cleanses 
from all sin." 

No President, since Washington, was so much a man 
of the people. Washington had most bitter enemies in 
his day, but justice and history had their revenge in con- 
signing them to the doom of forgetfulness, and elevating 
him, whom they were anxious to cast down from his 



22 

excellenc}^, to the lofty place as " the Father of his Coun- 
try." It must be for justice and history to decide 
whether the friends of Abraham Lincoln are mistaken 
in thinking that he will be ranked, in future time, as the 
Father of the people in the restoration of the Republic. 
These are not the days to judge of him, though every 
hour will be full of his praise. These are not the cir- 
cumstances to trust in him. He was immortal till his 
work was done ; and now, when it is done, and his very 
death is made the divine seal of approbation of his 
measures, and the token that they will be carried out 
with an even sterner hand, until justice, union and free- 
dom are fully established, he is taken away that we may 
not put our confidence in man, nor limit our thanks to 
him whom God had girded for the victory. " The Lord 
gave, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the 
Lord." 

This crime has made a martyr at the White House. I 
do not claim that the President was a saint. Would to 
God that, if his time had come, he might have died in. 
another place. I judge him not. But he was a martyr 
to his honesty, his love for the people, his frankness and 
singleness of mind, his foresight and discernment, his 
tenderness, his fatherhood, his broad and deep humanity, 
his firmness in the conviction of duty and of right, and, 
may we not hope, to his faith in that Redeemer who died 
for him on that very same day of the Christian calendar. 
I liave good reason to believe that he daily read the word 
of God, that he maintained family prayer, and that he 
hojic'd tliat a work of grace had been wrought in his 
soul during the years that he has borne responsibilities 
greater than any man who ever filled that highest posi- 
tion to which our countrymen can elevate a "plain man 
of the people." If he was a Christian, this terrible blow 
leaves us to weep, not for him, but for ourselves. 

His work was done. His policy was established. The 
blow aimed at it has not destroyed it, but rather stamped 



23 

it with the seal of eternal endurance. Slavery and trea- 
son ^yill die together, and there will be no resurrection. 
And how did he regard himself? Only as an agent in 
God's hand ; a mere pilot under a great commander, a 
subordinate under the God of nations. The "plain man 
of the people," as he called himself, is now silent in 
death, but the Omnipotent Commander lives. 

In him the President would have this nation trust. 
His inaugural of last March was a most remarkable 
proof of his faith in the God of our fathers. Said he : 

"The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world 
because of offences, for it needs be that offences come, but woe to 
that man by whom the offence cometh.' If we shall suppose that 
American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of 
God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His 
appointed time, He now wills to remove, and He now gives to both 
North and South this terrible war 'as the woe due to those by whom 
the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from these 
Divine attributes which the believers in a loving God always ascribe 
to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred 
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with 
the sword, as was said three throusand years ago, so still it must be 
said, ' the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

" With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in 
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the 
Nation's wounds, to care for him^who shall have borne the battle 
and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and among all 
nations." 

Oh ! there is one widow weeping to-night as never 
widow wept in the Presidential mansion. There is one 
group of orphans on whose lips the word father will 
tremble, and its whisper will call up the most horrible 
tragedy this nation ever knew. May the Great Father 
bind up their wounded hearts, and the Good Shepherd 
lead them evermore in the green pastures where their 
souls may be restored ; and now, while they are in the 



24 

valley of the shadow of death, where they parted from 
him on whom they leaned, may they have the presence 
of Him who will never leave nor forsake them. 

And when this nation turns away from the grave of 
Abraham Lincoln, history will sit down there and calmly 
trace on the monument these words, taken from the 
chapter which, by inspiration, reveals the President's 
policy and records its success : " Thou shalt be called 
the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to 
dwell in." {Isaiah Iviii.) 

And his successors will " build up the old waste 
places," and "raise up the foundations of many genera- 
tions." 



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